Transforming STEM Education Using an Asset-Based Ecosystem Model

该项目旨在通过加大努力改变STEM教育，使其“满足学生的需求”，为国家利益服务。为此，该项目旨在建立一个有弹性的教学和学习生态系统，以培养学生、教师和员工。这个STEM教育生态系统的一个关键成果将是学生、员工和教师实现他们个人的专业和个人目标。目前，许多STEM教育工作者将教育过程视为一个工厂，要求学生首先掌握标准知识和技能，然后才能很好地发挥作用。“工厂式”模式并不能满足学生的教育需求，尤其是当大学生成功所需的优势和知识被狭隘地定义时。在生态系统模型的指导下，该项目旨在通过将STEM教师的思维模式转变为将教育视为生态系统的观点，来改变STEM教学的范式。在这个STEM教育生态系统中，所有学生和他们带来的资产都是有价值和重要的。这种新的思维模式将使教师能够有意地建立一个支持性和弹性的STEM教育生态系统，促进所有学生的学习，无论他们的背景如何。该项目还将同时解决部门主席/项目协调员的心理模型和能力问题，以便他们能够在部门层面上领导创建STEM教育生态系统所需的文化变革。最后，该项目打算改革教学评估系统，以促进反思和自我完善的文化，从而帮助教师以一种持续的方式发展他们的教学技能，这反映了他们为教学带来的资产。总体而言，实现这些目标有望消除体制障碍，并创建一个能够维持支持性和可持续的STEM教育生态系统的结构。该项目将由位于洛杉矶的加州州立大学领导，该大学是一家西班牙裔服务机构，旨在使用实践社区（CoP）框架和Kotter的组织变革策略实施拟议的转型。两者都是实现组织和系统变革的循证方法。通过不同的社区，包括行动研究教师学习社区、领导力学习社区和辅导员学习社区，培养教师与STEM教学和学习相关的心理模式和部门文化的变化。STEM教育生态系统社区旨在认识、理解和重视学生、教师、员工和管理人员的文化财富，并利用这些资产创造一个支持性和文化响应性的环境。STEM教育生态系统社区还将帮助形成一个强大的STEM教师和领导者联盟，他们接受生态系统模型，从而扩大变革的范围。教学评价体系的改革将使教师的认可和晋升与他们的资产、目标和随着时间的推移而取得的进步相一致，从而锚定制度的变化。该项目将使用混合方法研究设计来研究拟议变革过程的有效性，基于资产的教学和学习的影响，并制定更完整的指标来衡量健康的STEM教育生态系统。研究结果还可能为制度变革提供有价值的指导方针，可用于其他机构。拟议的项目有可能创造一种利用学生、教师和员工资产的STEM教育模式，从而在STEM教育和STEM劳动力中实现更大的公平和包容。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区的STEM教育转型和改善。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by scaling up an effort to transform STEM education so that it “meets students where they are.” To this end, the project aims to establish a resilient teaching and learning ecosystem that nurtures students, faculty, and staff. A key outcome of this STEM education ecosystem will be students, staff, and faculty who achieve their individual professional and personal goals. Currently, many STEM educators view the educational process as a factory that requires students to first possess standard knowledge and skills before they can function well. The “factory-like” model does not serve students’ educational needs, particularly when the strengths and knowledge expected for undergraduate student success are narrowly defined. Guided by an ecosystem model, this project aims to shift the paradigm of teaching and learning in STEM by shifting the mental model of STEM faculty to a view of education as an ecosystem. In this STEM education ecosystem, all students and the assets they bring are valuable and matter. This new mental model will allow the faculty to intentionally establish a supportive and resilient STEM education ecosystem that facilitates learning for all students regardless of their backgrounds. The project will also simultaneously address the mental model and capacity of department chairs/program coordinators, so they can lead the cultural change needed to create a STEM education ecosystem at the department level. Finally, the project intends to reform the teaching evaluation system to promote a culture of reflection and self-improvement, thus helping faculty develop their teaching skills in a sustained way that reflects the assets they bring to teaching. Taken as a whole, achieving these goals is expected to remove institutional barriers and create a structure that can sustain a supportive and sustainable STEM education ecosystem. The project will be led by California State University at Los Angeles, a Hispanic Serving Institution, and is designed to implement the proposed transformations using the Community of Practice (CoP) framework and Kotter’s organizational change strategies. Both are evidence-based approaches to achieve organizational and systemic change. The change of faculty members’ mental models and departmental cultures relating to STEM teaching and learning will be cultivated through various communities including the Action Research Teaching Fellows Faculty Learning Community, the Leadership Learning Community, and the Facilitators Learning Community. The STEM education ecosystem communities are intended to recognize, understand, and value the cultural wealth of students, faculty, staff, and administrators, and leverage these assets to create a supportive and culturally responsive environment. The STEM education ecosystem communities will also help to form a powerful coalition of STEM faculty and leaders who embrace the ecosystem model, thus extending the scope of change. The reform of the teaching evaluation system will anchor the institutional changes by aligning faculty recognition and advancement with their assets, goals, and improvements over time. The project will use a mixed methods research design to study the effectiveness of the proposed change process, the impact of asset-based teaching and learning, and to develop more complete metrics for measuring a healthy STEM education ecosystem. The research findings may also lead to valuable guidelines for institutional change that can be used at other institutions. The proposed project has the potential to create a model of STEM education that leverages the assets of students, faculty and staff, thereby leading to greater equity and inclusion in STEM education and the STEM workforce. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.